Chương 8
“Then some memories may contain a lie without being entirely made of one.”
Laura looked away.
That distinction became important.
Not immediately.
Nothing useful became useful immediately anymore.
At the pediatric genetics consultation, Laura and Mark sat on opposite sides of a small table.
Rachel was there.
So was a pediatric cardiologist named Dr. Shah.
Mark arrived early. Laura noticed because he had always been early to medical appointments.
Old habits continued behaving normally while their meaning changed.
Dr. Shah explained the options and limits carefully. Testing Sophie for the known familial variant could provide useful information because there were potential implications for monitoring. A positive result would not automatically mean she had disease. A negative result for the familial variant would be reassuring in a specific way but would not make her immune to every heart problem on earth.
Sophie, who had been allowed to stay with Nora during the adult consultation, was not there.
Laura asked questions.
Mark asked one.
“If she’s positive, did we cause it?”
Dr. Shah answered without drama.
“Genetic inheritance isn’t a moral act.”
Laura looked at Mark.
He stared at his hands.
After the appointment, they stood in the parking lot.
Not the underground hospital garage.
A sunny outpatient lot filled with minivans and people carrying coffee.
Mark said, “I’m sorry.”
Laura adjusted the strap of her bag.
“For what part?”
“All of it.”
“That’s too big to be useful.”
He nodded.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
The phrase slipped out.
Both of them noticed.
Laura almost smiled.
Mark did not.
He said, “I talked to someone.”
“A lawyer?”
“A therapist.”
That surprised her.
Mark looked embarrassed.
“He says I control things when I’m afraid.”
Laura gave him a tired look.
“Groundbreaking.”
“I deserved that.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“I know.”
She looked toward the clinic.
“Did you tell him what you did?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
Mark inhaled.
“I told him I hid your result because I thought you’d make a decision I couldn’t live with.”
Laura’s fingers tightened around the bag strap.
“That’s closer.”
“He asked why I thought my fear was more important than yours.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
For once, that seemed like the correct answer.
Sophie’s test was scheduled after the consultations.
The day of the blood draw, she wore a yellow shirt with a cat in sunglasses.
Mark met them at the clinic.
Laura had considered telling him not to come.
She did not.
Sophie climbed onto Laura’s lap and watched the technician prepare the needle.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“A little,” Laura said.
“How little?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark crouched beside them.
“Like a pinch.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“That’s what grown-ups say before something hurts.”
The technician laughed.
“She’s not wrong.”
Laura held Sophie’s hand.
Mark held the other.
For ten seconds, they looked like a family from six months earlier.
Then the needle came out.
Sophie did not cry until it was over.
Afterward Mark produced a packet of gummy bears from his pocket.
Laura looked at him.
“You brought candy?”
“I planned ahead.”
Sophie opened the bag.
Laura thought about how dangerous that trait could become when mixed with fear.
Planning ahead.
Deciding for people.
Making the hard thing disappear before anyone else could object.
She said nothing.
The results would take time.
Waiting changed Laura more than the initial discovery did.
In the garage, she had wanted one answer.
What exactly have you been hiding from me?
Now she understood that answers multiplied obligations.
If Sophie was positive, what then?
If Laura’s own tests showed progression, what would she change?
Would she remain married to Mark?
Could a person forgive someone without giving them the same position in her life?
Did forgiveness even matter yet?
Some evenings, Laura missed him so badly she became angry at herself.
She missed stupid things.
The sound of him opening the dishwasher too hard.
His habit of reading restaurant menus online before they went anywhere.
The way he complained about decorative pillows while continuing to arrange them on the couch every morning.
None of those things excused him.
That was precisely why they hurt.
One Friday, he came to Nora’s to pick up Sophie and found Laura sitting on the front steps with a paper cup of coffee.
He stopped.
“You okay?”
“I’m drinking coffee on a porch, Mark.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
He waited.
Laura looked at him.
“You can sit.”
He sat two steps below her.
For a while neither spoke.
A lawn mower buzzed somewhere down the block. Someone’s garage door opened. A delivery driver carried three boxes to the wrong house, stared at his phone, then carried them back.
Mark said, “Do you remember the hotel in Cincinnati?”
Laura looked at him.
“What?”
“The one with the broken air conditioner.”
She almost smiled.
“Why are you thinking about that?”
“I don’t know.”
It had been their second anniversary. The hotel room was eighty degrees. Mark had called the front desk three times and eventually slept with a wet towel across his chest.
“You threatened to write a review.”
“I did write a review.”
“You gave them three stars.”
“The breakfast was good.”
Laura laughed.
Then the laughter faded.
Mark stared at the sidewalk.
“I keep remembering normal things.”
“So do I.”
“I don’t know what to do with them.”
“Neither do I.”
He nodded.
For a minute, they were simply two people who had once been happy in a bad hotel.
Then Mark said, “There’s something else.”
Laura’s body stiffened.
He noticed.
“It’s not another result.”
“That’s a terrible way to start a sentence.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
Mark rubbed his palms against his jeans.
“After you got pregnant with Sophie, I called the genetics office again.”
Laura stared at him.
“When?”
“About eight weeks in.”
“Why?”
“I panicked.”
She said nothing.
“They told me again that you needed counseling. They asked whether you knew your result.”
May you like
Laura’s voice dropped.
“What did you say?”
